


Out Go the Lights It Begins

by pennilesspoet



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Music, Jake was made for this rock n roll lifestyle, M/M, Musician!Patrick, Past Patrick/Rachel, Patrick and Jake have a ~whiskey or two, Patrick was made for lovin' David, Romantic Fluff, Stevie and Jake love the woods, Tour Bus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennilesspoet/pseuds/pennilesspoet
Summary: A tour bus breaks down in Schitt's Creek, and a song is born.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	1. Sing Your Melody

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely self-indulgent exercise. I needed something to distract me from the pandemic and the wildfires, so I dug up a classic old trope that I don't think has been done in this fandom yet, as far as I can tell.
> 
> I have three chapters written and most of the story sketched out. It won't be super long, as I am not an Epic Fic kind of writer (even when I want to be). 
> 
> The show timeline means nothing here! All you need to know is that Patrick is in a band, and they're on tour. I use some of Noah's song titles and lyrics (and one of his music videos) in this fic, and I also added some song titles I either make up or pulled from other artists. The title of the fic and the lyrics at the tops of the chapters is from the song "Golden", by My Morning Jacket.

_Watchin' a stretch of road  
Miles of light explode  
Driftin' off a thing I'd never done before  
Watchin' a crowd roll in  
Out go the lights it begins  
A feelin' in my bones I never felt before  
  
_

Patrick has a melody stuck in his head.

It’s been there since Milwaukee, in snippets just long enough to gall him. He knows there’s a song there, but lyrics escape him at the moment.

Outside, the rural Canadian landscape rolls by - endless swaths of flat land, dotted with the occasional tree or farmhouse. They left the last vestiges of civilization about an hour ago, but Patrick often prefers the relative silence of the open road. His gaze fixed on the landscape, he absently plucks the insistent melody out on his acoustic guitar. Beside him, Twyla has pulled Jake into another Tarot card reading. Patrick can’t believe Jake is humoring Twyla again, given how dark her last reading got. Judging by the slightly constipated look on Jake’s handsome face right now, his second reading isn’t going much better.

“Hey, _Superstar_! Do you know any other chords?” Ronnie calls from the driver’s seat. Patrick flushes as he self-consciously lays his hand across the strings to stop the sound. The last thing he needs before they even get to Elm Valley is to get on his tour manager’s bad side. Again.

“Sorry Ronnie!” he replies, and hears her scoff. Shrugging, he places the guitar back in the case and settles back to try and get some sleep before they hit town.

**~@~**

Patrick has known Jake since high school. They were in the same music class, and also played on the school’s baseball team. Their friendship, on the outside, seemed unlikely to those around them; Patrick was seen as reliable and staid, and a model student, whereas Jake was much more laid back and seemed to consider school to be a completely optional activity. Patrick dated one person in high school - Rachel, the homecoming queen, editor of the school newspaper and Patrick’s perfect counterpart in nearly every way. Jake - well, Jake dated _everyone else_.

Patrick and Jake had always talked about starting a band, and finally managed to do it the summer after graduation. Their first drummer, Nathaniel, was a friend of a friend and lasted about a year before quitting to start university. Their second drummer, George, had to quit three months in to take over his family’s restaurant. But George had a cousin, and it turned out she could play both drums and keyboard, so from that moment on, Twyla was a part of the band.

The summer after Twyla joined was the year everything changed. Their band, the B13’s, was just starting to pick up some momentum in their home town and even in the surrounding area, when all of the sudden one of their YouTube videos went viral. It was a silly video - the three of them in coveralls, dancing to a tune Patrick had written on the back of a napkin late one night at a dark and sticky bar. But the video picked up more and more hits, and then Instagram videos started to pop up of people copying the dance. The next thing they knew, _Got You_ was charting on the Hot 100, and A&R reps starting showing up at their regular Thursday night gigs. A month later, they had a deal with a moderately-sized label to record one album, with the contingency that their contract could be extended if the first album did well.

**~@~**

The small tour they are currently on is in support of the debut album. It sold moderately well, and their follow-up single, _Stolen Houses_ charted, though was not nearly as successful as _Got You_. They’re hitting up some US east coast and Midwestern towns and several towns through Ontario and Manitoba. If the tour continues to do well, the label will add some western Canadian and US dates to their itinerary for later in the year. They are keeping costs down by traveling together along with their label-assigned tour manager in a minibus which is pulling a small trailer that holds their sound equipment and luggage. They trade off driving, and have a pact to settle any and all arguments before they all climb back into the bus together. (It’s really only Patrick and Ronnie that argue, but Jake and Twyla refuse to be stuck in a bus listening to it; the stretch between Dubuque and Madison was the longest of all of their lives.)

All of the fights and long hours, and miles under their feet is worth it to be able to play in front of a live audience though. The rush Patrick feels when the lights go down and the crowd cheers is something that cannot be matched. And watching people - large groups of people! - singing along to the words he’s written is absolutely unbelievable.

Patrick is half asleep, with a dozing Twyla leaning on him, when he hears noise coming from the front of the bus. Ronnie and Jake are both making excited noises, but before Patrick can ask what all the fuss is about, the bus is pulling off to the side of the road, and Jake and Ronnie are jumping out. Curious, Patrick nudges Twyla awake, and the two of them clamber out.

Ronnie is cackling and pointing at a large sign while Jake tries to take her photo with his phone. Patrick squints up and takes in the absolutely ridiculous painting of a man, bent over a woman. Both are standing in a river or creek. The sign reads, 

_Welcome to_  
_Schitt’s Creek  
_ _Where_ _everyone_ _fits in_

“Wow,” Patrick mutters, and then notices the second sign, attached to the town sign like a giant white Post-It note. In red letters, under a giant red arrow pointed at the couple, the sign reads,

_Don’t worry, it’s his sister!_

“Not sure we should stop in this town,” Jake chuckles.

“Not sure we have a choice,” Ronnie replies flatly. Patrick and Jake turn to find Ronnie standing at the front of their little bus, which is emanating an alarming amount of smoke.

“Oh, I guess that psychic in Indianapolis was being literal about seeing a fire in my future,” Twyla quips. Patrick, Ronnie, and Jake glare at her as she takes a photo of the incestuous town sign with her phone.


	2. Waiting for My Lucky Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David is thinking about starting a business. The motel gets some new guests!

_People always told me  
That bars are dark and lonely  
And talk is often cheap and filled with air  
Sure sometimes they thrill me  
But nothin' could ever chill me  
Like the way they make the time just disappear _

David is getting tired of sketching trees.

He’s better at faces, he thinks, but one can only sketch a person so many times before they come off as a bit of a creep, and there aren’t many people in Schitt’s Creek worth sketching (that he hasn’t already drawn).

He’s attempting to sketch some of the trees that surround the creek, but the weed Stevie gave him hit harder than he was expecting, and he can’t focus on his notebook very well. Stevie is asleep on the blanket next to him, her chestnut hair fanned out around her head. He gazes down at her for a long moment, then attempts to draw what he sees. She looks beautiful like this, asleep (and quiet) in the golden light of the early evening. 

They’d tried being more than friends about a year ago. The sex was good - great, actually - but they are almost too much alike for a long term romantic entanglement, and their friends with benefits arrangement became painfully awkward, and then just plain painful, when it became clear one drunken night that they were actually in very different places emotionally.

Still, it’s probably on this list of David Rose’s most successful relationships. But the bar is embarrassingly low in that department. 

He looks down at Stevie again to confirm she is still out, and then flips to the back of his notebook. A few weeks ago, after receiving the Blouse Barn settlement that netted him a tidy sum for his savings (and allowed him to purchase a Neil Barrett sweater he’d been eyeing on eBay) David started thinking about using part of the money to put together a new art space. There were many things that David did not miss about New York, but having his own space to work, and to display beautiful art was one thing he missed terribly. He’s been eyeing the old General Store, with its large picture windows and a second storey that would be perfect as a studio, for a week or so, and has been secretly sketching out ideas for how he could transform the space. To make it beautiful.

He thinks he’s almost ready to tell Stevie about it. He’ll definitely tell her before he tells his family, who can’t keep a secret to save their lives. He knows she’ll be supportive in her own dry, sarcastic way, but he’s still worried she’ll say it’s a bad idea. He doesn’t really think it is though. He thinks it could actually be amazing and beautiful if he did it right. He has an appointment on Tuesday to talk to Ray about it, and he wants to talk it through with Stevie beforehand.

He runs his finger over the sketch on the page - of an art space that perhaps sells products too - things that people love, like soaps, and scarves, and candles. Things that make people feel comforted, and warm. Like they’re home.

Stevie snuffles, then snorts herself awake. David flips his notebook closed, and gazes back out at the creek. 

“Shit, that stuff is strong,” Stevie mutters. She sits up and leans against David. Her skin is sun warmed and soft where it touches his neck.

“What were you drawing?”

David opens his mouth, ready to tell her about his idea, but the weed is still making its way through his system, so he leans his head down onto Stevie’s and says, 

“Just more trees. C’mon, I need a cheeseburger.”

**~@~**

They stop at the cafe for cheeseburgers, and David thinks about telling Stevie about his plan over dinner. But then she steals half his fries, and they spend most of the rest of dinner sniping at each other about friendship boundaries. As they make their way back to Stevie's car, David's eyes linger on the empty General Store, and he resolves to talk to her when they get back to the motel.

The drive back to the motel is short, and when they pull up they discover that Bob’s tow truck, which is attached to a minibus, is taking up a good portion of the parking lot. A couple of guys are attempting to unhitch a small storage trailer from the back of the bus, while a handsome woman with cropped hair watches in amusement. A petite woman with long dark hair and dressed in a floral skirt that looks like a tablecloth is taking photos of everything with her phone, and Bob is talking to David's father near the door to the motel office.

“Looks like a party,” Stevie mutters. She parks her car on the opposite end of the lot and kills the engine. David clambers out of her car, and accidentally kicks an empty soda cup out onto the ground in the process. 

“Ugh, your car is a garbage dump,” David snaps. He picks up the offending cup and tosses it back into her car then slams the door.

“Well if it’s so offensive, you can find your own way to the Wobbly Elm tomorrow,” Stevie replies as David rounds the car, “C’mon, let’s go see who these people are.”

As they begin to cross the lot, they see that the trailer has been successfully parked in one of the vacant spaces. Bob is talking to the short-haired woman, presumably about the minibus, and the woman in the offensive skirt is now chatting with the two men. As they get a bit closer, David lets out a squeak and grabs Stevie’s arm.

“What?”

“Stevie - that’s. That band that has that song. With the dumb dance.”

“Okay, wow, you’re gonna have to narrow it down.”

“The B13’s!” David hisses quietly.

“Oh god, that video you watched nonstop for like, a week?” Stevie cackles.

“Uh, I didn’t hear you complaining about it at the time,” David replies hotly.

“I mean, that Jake guy _is_ hot,” Stevie looks over at the group, then back at David.

“Okay, they are probably into groupies, right? Could be fun to bang one out with at least one of them.”

“ _Bang one out_? Who raised you?" David tuts, "No, I was thinking we play it cool, like um, like we don’t know who they are. And just, you know, welcome them to town.”

“Uh, you haven’t played anything 'cool’ since I met you. What’s wrong with my plan?”

“They're probably gonna be here for a few days! _Bob_ is fixing their bus. There is like, no way they are getting out of here before the end of the week.”

“Hmm, fair point," Stevie nods. "So we’re playing the long game?”

“Sure, whatever. Come on, before Alexis gets her hooks into one of them.”


End file.
